The Big Ten Conference is intent on moving to a nine- or 10-game football schedule in response to its impending expansion to 14 schools.

Conference commissioner Jim Delany said Monday that staying with the current eight-game format is "not even on the table." Delany met with the conference's athletic directors at Big Ten headquarters near Chicago.

“We like to play each other, and those are not hollow words," Delany said, per CBSSports.com. "We are getting larger and want to bind the conference together.”

The Big Ten will add Maryland from the ACC and Rutgers from the Big East in 2014. The conference will be split into seven-team divisions, which would likely mean six games inside the division and three or four outside the division in an expanded format.

Other scheduling tweaks appear to be on the way as well. Delany supports the idea of night games in November; ESPN.com noted that the last one played in the Big Ten was indoors, at the Metrodome in Minneapolis (Iowa-Minnesota) in 2008. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told ESPN.com that he is "open" to the idea, but added that weather history needs to be studied before a decision can be made.

Also, conference games may be played as early as Week 1 in early September in response to the expanded league schedule.

A final resolution on the number of league games is expected this spring, according to ESPN.com. The expanded schedule likely wouldn't be implemented until the 2016 season.

The Pac-12 switched to a nine-game conference schedule in 2006 when it still had 10 teams. The Big 12 Conference, which has 10 teams, also plays a nine-game slate.